I. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to code-division multiple access (CDMA) wireless communication systems. More particularly, the present invention relates to a novel and improved method and apparatus for estimating channel conditions in a CDMA wireless communication system using decoded data.
II. Description of the Related Art
In a wireless radiotelephone communication system, many users communicate over a wireless channel. Communication over the wireless channel can be one of a variety of multiple access techniques that allow a large number of users in a limited frequency spectrum. These multiple access techniques include time division multiple access (TDMA), frequency division multiple access (FDMA), and code division multiple access (CDMA).
The CDMA technique has many advantages. An exemplary CDMA system is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,901,307, entitled xe2x80x9cSpread Spectrum Multiple Access Communication System Using Satellite Or Terrestrial Repeatersxe2x80x9d, issued Feb. 13, 1990, assigned to the assignee of the present invention, and incorporated herein by reference. An exemplary CDMA system is further described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,103,459, entitled xe2x80x9cSystem And Method For Generating Signal Waveforms In A CDMA Cellular Telephone Systemxe2x80x9d, issued Apr. 7, 1992, assigned to the assignee of the present invention, and incorporated herein by reference.
In each of the above patents, the use of a forward-link (base station to mobile station) pilot signal is disclosed. In a typical CDMA wireless communication system, such as that described in EIA/TIA IS-95, the pilot signal is a xe2x80x9cbeaconxe2x80x9d transmitting a constant zero symbol and spread with the same pseudonoise (PN) sequences used by the traffic bearing signals. The pilot signal is typically covered with the all-zero Walsh sequence. During initial system acquisition, the mobile station searches through PN offsets to locate a base station""s pilot signal. Once it has acquired the pilot signal, it can then derive a stable phase and magnitude reference for coherent demodulation, such as that described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,764,687 entitled xe2x80x9cMobile Demodulator Architecture For A Spread Spectrum Multiple Access Communication System,xe2x80x9d issued Jun. 9, 1998, assigned to the assignee of the present invention, and incorporated herein by reference.
A functional block diagram of a typical prior art forward link data formatter as used by a CDMA base station is shown in FIG. 1. Data source 102 may be, for example, a variable rate vocoder such as that described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,657,420, entitled xe2x80x9cVariable Rate Vocoderxe2x80x9d, issued Aug. 8, 1997, assigned to the assignee of the present invention and incorporated herein by reference. Data source 102 generates traffic channel information in the form of frames of digital data. CRC and tail bit generator 104 calculates and appends cyclic redundancy check (CRC) bits and tail bits to the frames generated by data source 102. The frame is then provided to encoder 106, which provides forward error correction coding, such as convolutional encoding, upon the frame as is known in the art. The encoded symbols are provided to repetition generator 120, which repeats the reordered symbols to provide the appropriate modulation symbol rate. The repeated symbols are then provided to interleaver 108, which re-orders the symbols in accordance with a predetermined interleaver format. The repeated, interleaved symbol stream is then covered with one of a set of orthogonal Walsh sequences in traffic Walsh coverer 122, and gain adjusted in gain element 124. It should be understood that other forward link data formatters are also known in the art. For example, it is well known that the repetition generator 120 may be placed after the interleaver 108.
Pilot signal generator 128 generates a pilot signal, which may be a sequence of all ones. The pilot signal is then covered with the all-one Walsh sequence and combined with the output of gain element 124 in combiner 136. The combined pilot channel and traffic channel data (which may be plus or minus ones) is then spread in PN spreader 138 using a complex PN code generated by PN generator 140, and then transmitted by radio frequency transmitter 142 over antenna 144. A similar forward link data formatter is disclosed in co-pending U.S. Pat. No. 6,396,804, entitled xe2x80x9cHigh Data Rate CDMA Wireless Communication Systemxe2x80x9d, issued May 28, 2002 assigned to the assignee of the present invention and incorporated by reference herein.
Other data formatting techniques also exist. For example, in the cdma2000 reverse link, the pilot signal is time-multiplexed with power control commands. Additionally, in W-CDMA, the forward link uses dedicated pilot signals that are time-multiplexed with other information.
FIG. 2 illustrates a functional block diagram of a typical prior art data demodulator for use in a CDMA mobile station. Receiver 202 receives and downconverts the signals transmitted by transmitter 142 of FIG. 1. The digital baseband output of receiver 202 is despread in PN despreader 204 using the complex PN code generated PN generator 206, which is the same complex PN code as that generated by PN generator 140 of FIG. 1.
The despread signal is then Walsh uncovered in traffic channel Walsh uncoverer 208 using the same Walsh sequence as that of the traffic channel Walsh coverer 122 of FIG. 1. The Walsh-uncovered chips are then accumulated into Walsh symbols in Walsh chip summer 210 and provided as a traffic channel signal to dot product circuit 212. In some applications, an additional delay element (not shown) is introduced between Walsh chip summer 210 and dot product circuit 212 to account for delays introduced by pilot filter 216. However, if pilot filter 216 is a causal filter, such a delay element (not shown) is not necessary. The dot product circuit is also known as a xe2x80x9cconjugate productxe2x80x9d circuit. It performs the operation expressed mathematically by one of the following equivalent forms:  less than a,b greater than =axe2x96xa1b=ab*.
The despread signal is also provided to Walsh chip summer 214 where they are accumulated into Walsh symbols and provided to pilot filter 216 as pilot channel symbols. Note that since the pilot channel is covered with the all-one Walsh sequence in Walsh coverer 134 of FIG. 1, a vacuous operation, the corresponding uncoverer is also vacuous in operation. However, in the general case, the pilot signal may be uncovered using any same Walsh sequence as is used to cover it. The pilot filter 216 serves to reject the noise in the pilot symbols, providing a phase and scale reference for the dot product circuit 212.
Once per symbol, the dot product circuit 212 computes the component of the traffic channel signal in phase with the pilot channel signal generated by the pilot filter 216. As described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,506,865, entitled xe2x80x9cPilot Carrier Dot Product Circuitxe2x80x9d, issued Apr. 9, 1996, assigned to the assignee of the present invention and incorporated herein by reference, the dot product adjusts both the received signal""s phase and scale as needed for coherent demodulation.
The symbols output from dot product circuit 212 are de-interleaved in de-interleaver 218, using the same format used by interleaver 108 of FIG. 1. The de-interleaved symbols are then decoded in decoder 220 according to the error correcting codes employed by encoder 106 of FIG. 1. The resulting decoded symbols are analyzed on a frame-by-frame basis by quality indicator CRC Check 222 to ensure that the frame was properly decoded. If the frame was properly decoded, then that decoded frame is forwarded for further processing. Quality indicator CRC Check 222 typically would examine the CRC portion of the frame, but may also use other frame quality indications such as Yamamoto metrics.
In a typical CDMA wireless communication system, such as that described in EIA/TIA IS-95, the pilot signal energy may be less than the traffic signal energy, depending on the data rate. Additionally, in recently proposed third-generation (3G) CDMA wireless communication systems, the pilot signal may not be transmitted continuously, but rather it may share time with a power control signal. For example, in a cdma2000 system, the reverse link pilot signal shares time with a multiplexed power control bit. In the W-CDMA system, the forward link dedicated pilot channels are time-multiplexed. When the pilot signal is weak or non-existent, coherent demodulation performance is degraded. Thus, a CDMA wireless communication system would benefit greatly from additional signal energy being used to provide a coherent channel reference and for estimation of the channel statistics.
The present invention is a novel and improved method and apparatus for estimating channel conditions in a code-division multiple access (CDMA) communication system having a pilot signal and a traffic signal. As used herein, the term xe2x80x9ctrafficxe2x80x9d signal is used to refer to a data-bearing signal other than the pilot signal. For example, the traffic signal may carry voice or data generated by one or more users, or it may carry overhead information generated by the communication system.
The apparatus includes a pilot filter for generating pilot signal channel estimates from the pilot signal and a circuit for reconstructing the traffic information bits after they have been decoded. The original traffic signal is demodulated by the reconstructed traffic information bits and is henceforth referred to as the xe2x80x9ctraffic-based channel referencexe2x80x9d. A predictive channel estimation circuit generates predictive channel estimates from the traffic-based channel reference and a delayed pilot signal. A demodulator demodulates the traffic signal using the predictive channel estimates and the pilot-based channel estimates. By using the predictive channel estimates that contain signal energy from the traffic signal in addition to that from the pilot signal, the channel conditions may be estimated more accurately.
The predictive channel estimation circuit includes a delay element for delaying the pilot signal to match the timing of the reconstructed traffic signal. A combiner combines the delayed pilot signal with the traffic-based channel reference signal. The combiner may weight the traffic-based channel reference signal relative to the delayed pilot signal according to quality indicators of the reconstructed traffic channel information bits. A predictive channel estimator generates the predictive channel estimates from the combined delayed pilot signal and traffic-based channel reference signal.
The circuit for generating the traffic-based channel reference signal depends on the format used to generate the data signal waveform. However, in the preferred embodiment, it includes an encoder for encoding data symbols recovered from the traffic signal, and an interleaver for interleaving the data symbols. Additionally, the demodulator may include a controller for weighting the predictive channel estimates according to a relative age of the predictive channel estimates.
In one application of the present invention, the controller also determines whether channel statistics of the pilot signal channel estimate and the predictive channel estimate are correlated over a predetermined time period. The present invention also includes a method for estimating channel conditions. The method described herein may perform by the apparatus described herein.